A Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons story
By Chris Bishop
PART 1: REFLECTIONS
PROLOGUE
Elsewhere…
He had been watching them…
Ever since he had discovered their
existence, ever since he found out that, by a stroke of chance,
he was actually able to watch them, he had done just that, without any scruples
whatsoever, without a single ounce of shame.
After all, as far as he knew, they didn’t know he even existed, let alone that
he was there, spying on them.
Spying on
her.
She was so much alive, so much like
he remembered; it was a miracle to find her again, after having thought he had
lost her forever, all that time. He
knew it was partly his fault she had disappeared from his life, and it hurt him
ever more so, as he had never truly had the time to tell her how much she meant
to him, how much he loved her…
How much he missed her now.
He had seen their love grow,
becoming much more than it had been in the beginning, much more than he had
aspired to for himself and her at the time she disappeared from his life. He had watched as they struggled against
whatever life threw at them, fighting against the odds in their personal and
professional lives – they were living dangerously, like himself, and they never
knew if tomorrow they would still be there for one another. And yet, always, they were able to
surmount whatever fate would throw at them, and those obstacles, however
difficult, only seemed to make their love burn even more passionately with each
passing day. They had some help, of course.
They had the support and understanding of all their friends, who stood by them
as if they were there specifically to make sure they would survive every peril
and be together.
He had watched, and listened, as
they made plans for their future together, imagining what it would be like, what
they would do. They had been
planning their wedding for a long time…and now, at long last, this day was
within their grasp.
It would be soon. Very soon.
He was so envious of their
happiness.
He should be the one standing by
her side, protecting her, loving her, sharing her days and nights. If not for a cruel stroke of fate, which
had denied him everything he had hoped for…
everything he had longed for…
This was so unfair.
To touch her again… to be with her again…
This life should have been his.
This happiness should have been his own.
This woman, whom he still loved so much it that it hurt, turning his life
upside down, should have been his woman.
Not that
other’s…
That other man who was presently
having all that should have been his…
Who was living his life.
No. It would not be.
He would not permit it.
He would take back his rightful
place; reclaim his life and his love, his right to happiness with this woman for
whom he had longed, whom he had spied on from a distance, without her knowledge
that he even existed.
He would not let her marry that
other… Because he was the only
one for her. She would be his…
No-one loved her more than he did.
He would prove it to her.
And he knew just exactly how he
would do that… Time was growing
near, he would have to act soon.
Very
soon…
Chapter 1
“Spectrum Research Centre Valley
Forge, this is SPJ-41.
Approaching destination.
E.T.A. thirty minutes. Request
acknowledgement.”
“SPJ-41,
this is Control Tower Spectrum Research.
Approach S.I.G. We are waiting for
your arrival.”
“S.I.G., Control Tower. Will
await your contact nearer the time for landing clearance.”
Captain Blue killed the
communication channel and leaned back comfortably in his seat, leaving the
automatic pilot on; there was still time for him to relax a bit, before taking
back control of the plane.
Now, this is the life,
he thought contently. He
always loved flying a plane, whenever his job demanded it; and whenever they
were in transit, wherever they had to go for the next mission, none of his
colleagues would even consider denying him this pleasure of his.
Not even Ochre, who freely admitted that his own love of flying was nothing
compared to what he called ‘Blue’s uncompromising passion’.
But aside from being at the helm of a powerful jet, there was nothing like the
sensation and knowledge of being between earth and space… soaring amongst and
above the clouds. It was a unique
feeling that he had never been able to describe to anyone – and that he didn’t
really
need
to describe to those who knew
him very well.
They knew about it; some of them even shared this sensation with him.
That was probably one of the reasons he liked being stationed on Cloudbase.
There was nothing
quite like it.
Well, there was
one thing,
actually – and all of his colleagues also knew what it was that Blue liked even
more than flying and soaring into the sky.
Captain Blue escaped from his
temporary fugue, just as Captain Scarlet returned from the passenger cabin, and
came to sit in the co-pilot seat.
“You’re just in time,” Blue told
him. “We’ll be landing in about
thirty minutes.”
“Good,” Scarlet answered.
“Even a simple landing will be a welcome distraction.”
“Oh?” Blue said, distractedly watching the
clouds passing by. “It’s that quiet
in the back?”
“Boring,” Scarlet specified,
heaving a deep sigh. “It’s no
picnic, keeping Doctor Lavender company, I can tell you. Ochre tried to convince me to take his
place; he wanted to toss me for it, can you imagine. I wouldn’t even do it if he offered me half a week’s salary.”
“You played it wise and ran away, I
see,” Blue said with an amused smile.
“Quite right. Lavender thinks it’s
necessary to explain his views of the Anderson Theory to whoever’s willing to
listen to him…” Scarlet frowned at his own choice of words, and corrected
himself right away: “Actually, even
to anyone who’s
not
willing… It really doesn’t matter if the person
in question is asleep, he’ll still talk…”
“Asleep?” Blue sounded perplexed. “Ochre’s asleep?”
“Well, I think he
pretended to be when I left. I’m
not sure if he is now.”
Blue chuckled at the thought; he
left Scarlet to check the instruments, while he returned his attention to the
contemplation of the blue sky and white clouds he could see through the cockpit
windshield.
Scarlet glanced at him.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Blue raised a brow and sighed.
“You just wasted your money,” he said.
“My thoughts are not so much of a mystery these days.”
“That’s because you have a
one-track mind,” Scarlet replied with a grin. “Is your marriage worrying you that
much?”
Blue grunted.
“It’s not the marriage so much as the wedding ceremony itself.
You know, it’s a lot to think about:
invitations to send, hiring caterers for the dinner, finding the
minister, organizing the reception, making travel and accommodation arrangements
for everyone…”
“Planning the honeymoon…” Scarlet
added mischievously.
Blue smiled, his mind wandering
into a momentary daydream.
“I can’t imagine how making travel
and accommodation arrangements for everyone could be such a problem,” Scarlet
continued. “I’m sure there aren’t
that many people from your side of the family who can’t afford the plane
tickets…”
“No… but they have to be there at the right
date.” Blue grew sombre. “And we haven’t decided on
that
just yet.”
Scarlet chuckled. “Shouldn’t
that be
your first
preoccupation?”
“We’re still trying to figure out
what would be the perfect time to hold the ceremony. You know, we want as many of our friends
as possible to be there, so we want to make sure everyone will be free for the
occasion. We know that probably not every Cloudbase officer will be able to make
it – duty schedules and all that… but at the very least, we need you and
Rhapsody to be there.”
“Well, I hope so – since I’m
supposed to be your best man…”
“And there’s the
colonel too; he agreed to give Karen away at the ceremony.” Blue sighed deeply, and frowned. “So far, that wouldn’t be so much of a
problem, if there wasn’t our families to take into account. Our respective mothers seem to want to
invite everyone on the planet, including the Pope.”
“Oh boy… Have you settled
where
the ceremony will be
held?
You’ll need a big place for that kind of gathering. Especially if His
Holiness is to attend… He has quite
a retinue, following him around…”
“Mom would have liked for it to
happen in Boston – on the family lawn…” Blue shook his head. “But that really
doesn’t look like it would be for the best. The family still gets a lot of
interest from the media.
An event like that might attract way too much attention. More than what Karen and I would like to
have, anyway.”
“So…?”
“We thought the wedding could be
held in Iowa, at Karen’s family ranch. Plenty of space, away from prying eyes…
And quite a lovely setting at that. Amanda already gave her consent, if we do choose to hold the
ceremony there.”
“Seems ideal all right. Would your
mother agree to that, though?”
“She seemed to like the idea when
we mentioned it to her.
She was less disappointed than I thought she would be, when I told her
the family mansion would not be the ideal place.”
“Your mother is a great lady.”
“She made
one
condition, though. That she
would be allowed to help Amanda in all the preparations… and that the family would pay its share.
In her head, that means, pay for everything.”
Scarlet glanced at his friend.
“Wait a minute… if Amanda and your mother are taking
charge of the preparations – how come you’re worrying so much about it all? I’m sure they will make a fine job of
it!”
“That’s the problem,” Blue sighed. “They’ll make too fine a job. Karen and I will have to
go through everything to make sure they have not gone overboard… especially
when it comes to the guest
list. We don’t want a few hundred
people to be present!”
“No… Just a couple of hundred of
the best crowd… and the Pope, of course…”
“Paul, I wasn’t being serious – it
was only a figure of speech!”
“I know,” Scarlet answered with a
teasing smile.
“Anyway, don’t joke about this being a reception for only a couple of hundred people. You don’t
know my mom…”
“Not as well as you do, obviously.” Scarlet
smirked. “But I know you. I’m surprised you had not decided to avoid all this
and simply elope with Karen.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t even
dream of it.” Blue smiled in turn. “Despite it all, and although I would really
prefer a smaller, more private ceremony, this is something I want to go through
with Karen. This is our big day… and I want for it to be perfect for us. For
Karen, especially. I know she’ll be absolutely thrilled if this is as grandiose
as our mothers want it to be.”
“I can’t disagree with that. You’re
a romantic at heart, Mr. Svenson.”
“Well, take notes, Mr. Metcalfe.
Soon enough, it’ll be your turn.”
Scarlet didn’t have time to answer
the comment, and Blue would have to wait to find out exactly what his friend’s
thoughts about it were, as almost precisely at that moment, the onboard radio
came alive with a voice addressing them:
“SPJ-41, this is Control Tower,
Spectrum Research. You are five
minutes from your destination.
Commence landing procedures.”
Blue answered:
“SPJ-41, Captain Blue answering.
SIG, Spectrum Research Control.”
“Back to work, then,” Scarlet said,
reaching for the intercom microphone. “Better tell our passengers that we’re
about to land.”
“Yep… Fortunately, it looks like it’ll be a
quiet mission. We should get back to Cloudbase soon enough.”
“Already missing your lady love,
then?” Scarlet asked with a grin.
Blue disengaged the automatic pilot
and took hold of the helm. He concentrated on the task ahead, but took the time
to answer his friend with a grin of his own: “You bet.”
The SPJ started its descent towards
the runway below.
The Spectrum Research Centre in
Valley Forge had its own runway, with its own hangars, set at some distance from
the facility, which was mostly underground. While the SPJ was taxied into one of
the hangars for its routine check up and maintenance after flight, Captains
Scarlet and Blue joined with Captain Ochre and Doctor Lavender, Cloudbase’s head
of R and D, and took the monorail cart to the main building.
After passing through the security check, the cart brought them directly to a
back entrance, and then into the technical research department, where Doctor
Giadello, head of the Complex, welcomed them with his usual warmth and energy.
Doctor Giadello was an affable, very professional man, who always took pride in
his work and whose curiosity seemed not to know any end. In that last aspect,
Doctor Lavender was quite like him – although he wasn’t exactly regarded as
highly as Giadello. Lavender wasn’t as easy-going, nor as sympathetic. Many of
those who had to interact closely with him mostly came to the same conclusion:
that Lavender wasn’t a likeable man.
He wasn’t indifferent – it was obvious he was enthusiastic about his work – but
he was far too detached, and he lacked social skills and a certain humane
quality that made people want to avoid interacting with him. Captain Scarlet was
the first to acknowledge the man’s dedication to his work, but he was also
amongst those who would avoid him as much as possible. Which, in his particular
case, considering the curiosity presented by his very peculiar condition, wasn’t
always an easy thing to do.
“Alistair, it’s good to see you,”
Giadello said, clasping hands with Lavender. “It’s been some time. You still
like living amongst the clouds?”
Lavender answered with a slight
smile. It had been a little more than a year since he had received a promotion,
and had left the confines of the Valley Forge Research Centre, where he worked
as one of Giadello’s closest assistants, to become chief of Cloudbase’s Research
and Development department. Although he admitted to enjoy working with Giadello,
the new position offered new challenges that he would not dare to resist – or
miss.
Since then, he had met on a few occasions with his former superior, and
every time, the latter had asked him the same question, as if he had expected
Lavender to say he would like to come back. It was Giadello, however, who had
recommended Lavender for the position.
After shaking hands with the
Spectrum officers, Doctor Giadello invited the group to follow him, and he
guided them through the corridors and into a lift that took them down to one of
the many underground levels of the complex.
“We are so glad to have you with us
for this occasion, Alistair – I mean, Doctor Lavender.”
Giadello offered a sheepish smile.
“I’m sorry, it seems a little awkward to call you that.
After all the time we worked together, since the U.S.S. Applied Technologies
Department...”
“That’s all right, Doctor,”
Lavender replied. “No harm done, really. Have you made any breakthrough since
last we discussed the subject?”
“Quite a lot, actually. That’s why
it’s so exciting to have you with us, considering all the input you gave us in
the discoveries we made so far.
And it’s good to have you with us too, Captain Scarlet, Captain Ochre…
After all, it was your own experience that encouraged us to pursue further
research in this new field.”
“I’m still wondering how wise that
research actually is, Doctor,” Scarlet said quietly enough. “We might very well
open a brand new can of worms that we don’t really want to see open.”
“Yes,” Ochre said in turn.
“Remember Pandora’s Box? How are we
to know that this won’t lead to catastrophe?”
“Catastrophe?” The door opened in
front of them, and Giadello guided them out and into a new corridor. “There is
no reason to worry, Captains,” he continued, dismissing the officers’ concern
with a wave of the hand. “I can see no way this can turn out wrong.”
They passed by multiple doors, and
upon reaching the last one, where a security sergeant stood guard, Giadello
punched a code into the key-pad. The door slid open in front of them and they entered, one
behind the other. A blond man,
wearing spectacles and a white laboratory coat, was waiting for them, standing
in front of a large computerised wall, right next to a round console that made
two of the three officers go stiff as they recognised it.
“You remember Doctor Kurnitz, from
the Radio Communication Department of the Nash Institute, gentlemen?”
Giadello presented.
“We do indeed,” Blue said.
“Nice to meet you again, Doctor Kurnitz.”
“Captain Blue, Captain Scarlet…
Captain Ochre, is that right?” Kurnitz nodded to them. “Doctor Lavender, happy you could
join us.”
“The good captains are a little
worried about the research we’re pursuing within these walls, Doctor,” Giadello
said to his colleague. “They are a bit concerned that whatever we do could end
in catastrophe, as Captain Ochre put it.”
“Really?” Kurnitz gave what seemed
like an amused smile. “You don’t have to worry, Captains. We are not planning to put these new
discoveries into application, by travelling through the many worlds composing
the multiverse. At least, not at
the moment.”
Ochre scowled. “That last part is
exactly
what I was afraid to hear.”
“What Captain Ochre is trying to
say, Doctors,” Captain Scarlet said in turn, “is that my colleagues and I have
come here, not only to escort Doctor Lavender, so he could join you in your
work, but because we are under orders from Colonel White to make sure that
everything going on here is proceeding safely, and that there are no risks
involved whatsoever.”
“I assure you, Captain Scarlet,”
Giadello explained, “that every safety measure has been taken so far to ensure
that no accident will ever occur.”
“We know,” Blue said.
“Cloudbase received reports from Lieutenant Obsidian, your chief of security at
the complex. Those safety measures looked more than satisfactory.”
“However,” Scarlet continued, “we
all know that the handling of Mysteron red stones combined with the Kurnitz
console can be very hazardous. Last time it was tried, even though the stones
seemed inert, it ended up in an accident…”
“Which opened a portal to a
parallel world,” Lavender added quickly. “And because of this accident, Captain,
we all know with complete certainty that the Anderson Theory is a reality…
Not some harebrained fantasy.”
“Well, Captain Ochre and I nearly
died because of that accident,” Scarlet reminded him. “Or, at the very least,
almost got stuck in that parallel world we accidentally discovered.”
“Yeah… we were lucky that your
counterparts actually found the way for us to get back,” Ochre added.
“I admit that the energy displayed
by the opening of the inter-dimensional portal is rather impressive,” Kurnitz
remarked, “and as you say, it was done quite by accident. When he was studying
the red stones last year, Doctor Lavender didn’t expect anything like that to
happen.”
“The ride back wasn’t exactly an
accident,” Scarlet replied.
“And it was still rather bumpy.”
“Yet, our counterparts did find a
certain way to better control the flow of energy,” Kurnitz continued.
“It didn’t run the risk of
destroying Cloudbase that second time, if that’s what you mean, Doctor,” Scarlet
remarked.
“Well, now we know how powerful
such a vortex could prove; our aim is actually to find a way to harness that
energy,” Giadello moved on. “And to control it far better than it has been so
far, so it won’t be as destructive when we open it again.”
“So you do want to use the
inter-dimensional portal to access those other worlds,” Blue said pensively.
“Oh, not to visit, Captain…”
Lavender replied. “Only to watch… study… without interfering, or interacting
with them whatsoever. Now that we know that these other worlds exist, we can
learn a lot, just by watching and comparing notes with them…”
“We might even find a way to defeat
the Mysterons,” Giadello added with
some level of excitement.
“Or to piss them off further,”
Ochre finished, darkly. His comments greatly amused both Scarlet and Blue, and
they had to make an effort not to smile openly. On the other hand, they couldn’t
help but concur with him.
The three scientists, however, were
not of the same opinion.
“Really, Captain, you would stop
the course of progress because of your fear of the unknown?”
“I have no fear of the unknown,
Doctor Lavender,” Ochre replied coldly, not appreciating the scientist’s
contemptuous remark. “I’m just a very careful man, and I don’t believe in taking
unnecessary risks, when they can be avoided. Besides, the course of progress
might very well be one of the reasons why we’re presently in this awful mess
with the Mysterons.”
“You can’t believe that, Captain,”
Kurnitz observed.
“Well, if we had not been in so much of a hurry to check those communication
signals that
your
institute picked up coming from Mars, Doctor, maybe we would have avoided that
goddammed planet until we were ready for an encounter with the Mysterons in the
first place,” Ochre continued. “As it is, we all know how that encounter went…
and if that was not a ‘catastrophe’, then I don’t know what is.”
Scarlet and Blue exchanged knowing
glances; Ochre wasn’t a talkative one when it came to important or serious
subjects, which he generally preferred to keep to himself. But when he had
something to say, he never minced his words, and he was able to debate his point
intelligently. He knew perfectly well that, because he was viewed by some as
something of a shallow character – because he loved to indulge in simple
pastimes, banter and sometimes play inoffensive practical jokes on his close
friends – some people did not take him very seriously. These people often forgot, though, that
Ochre was an extremely clever man, very competent and dedicated, and that these
qualities had nearly brought him to become high commander of the World
Government Police Corps. That he did not hold this highly significant post today
was probably only due to the personal choice he made, a few years back, when he
considered that he would serve a greater good if he were to join the senior
staff of the then newly formed Spectrum organisation.
Now these three scientists,
confident of their so-called high intellect and their vast knowledge, were being
challenged and even stomped by the sharpness of an ex-cop who used to walk the
beat on the darkest streets of Chicago, and who had became so proficient in
reading the minds of criminals, that he was able to predict their next moves in
the next twenty-four hours – often preventing a tragedy from happening.
“Are you saying that these harmless
explorations we’ll be planning,” Lavender said with a faint scoff, “could
disturb an alien civilisation living in a parallel universe, Captain Ochre?”
“Can you confirm to me that there is none in existence, Doctor Lavender?” Ochre
asked coolly. “We all know the Mysterons also plague that other world Captain
Scarlet and I visited… And that’s
only
one world. We also know that they are aware of
these worlds – if I remember correctly, it was your
counterpart who told this to
Captain Scarlet. After he had been
made into a Mysteron agent himself.”
“There is no need to be so
pessimistic, Captain,” Giadello said, interrupting Lavender as the latter was
preparing himself to give what no doubt would be a sharp reply. “We told you, we
do not plan to visit these other worlds, and therefore, we won’t be disturbing
anyone, or anything, even less any creatures that might cause us any harm.”
“That is reassuring to hear,
Doctor,” Blue said with a nod. “However, before we proceed with any test that you might want
to conduct, we must ensure complete security around this complex, and within the
confines of this room.”
“Of course, Captain Blue,” Giadello
agreed. “You will need to see Lieutenant Obsidian, then. Should I call for him?
He would be in the monitoring room.”
“Well, can you direct me to the
monitoring room, then?” Ochre suggested. “This way I could learn first hand how
well security is handled here. I trust Obsidian is doing good work, but better
safe than sorry, as they say, right?”
“Besides, that would be standard
procedure,” Scarlet concluded.
“I can take you there, Captain,”
Giadello suggested. “I wouldn’t
want for you to get lost on the way.”
“In the meantime,” Kurnitz
continued, “Doctor Lavender and I could go to the security vault, to get the
fragments of red stone we need for our little experiment.”
“Fragments, Doctor?” Scarlet
inquired.
“Very tiny ones, Captain.
What we could actually retrieve from that explosion in Iceland a few years ago.
You have seen the larger pieces of the stones, the egg-sized rocks that opened
the vortex last year. We still have
three of those. But for the purpose
of this experiment, and since we do not want to create a near disaster like last
time on Cloudbase…” Kurnitz addressed a genuine smile to Ochre, “… we will use
the fragments. That should be quite
sufficient to create the spark we need to establish a short contact, once we’ve
plugged them into the console. And
it will be safer, I can guarantee you.”
“We’re glad to hear it, Doctor,”
Scarlet answered, approvingly. “But still, are you sure those fragments will be enough?”
“I’ve been working on a handheld
device for months, Captain, with some of the features offered by this console
that I built to contact the Mysterons years ago. Although the fragments were
actually enough to power the device, I’m afraid I was unable to make contact
through the inter-dimensional vortex. It seems there’s something missing –
maybe some kind of frequency to which I would be able to home in to. I thought that the console could provide
this missing element. It certainly
would be able to extract more power from the fragments, anyway, and would have a
larger scope…”
“If you say so, Doctor,” Scarlet
answered hesitantly. He wasn’t about to argue with something he only half
understood.
“Would you care to come with us
too?” Kurnitz told him.
“Along with Captain Blue, of course…”
Scarlet and Blue exchanged glances
and then shook their heads simultaneously, declining the invitation.
“No, thank you, Doctor,” Blue
answered. “We’ll be standing guard next to your console, until you get back.” He
grinned. “We promise not to touch anything.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” Kurnitz said
with a grin, as he and Lavender directed their steps towards the door. “We shall
not be very long, then.”
“Have fun, you two,” Ochre called
as he followed Giadello.
“I will return as soon as I’ve checked security around here.”
Captains Scarlet and Blue watched
the four other men leave, and the door slid close on them.
As soon as they disappeared, Blue heaved a deep sigh.
“You actually think that Ochre will
come back?” he asked his colleagues.
“Yes… after the experiment, if he’s got any
sense. I can’t blame him for
feeling worried about all this. He
got pretty beaten up in that adventure last year.”
“So were you, if I recall.”
“Well, I got
better. Ochre passed most of his time in the other world in Cloudbase’s sickbay.
Quite frankly, I was surprised to learn he volunteered to come along.”
“He wanted to make sure that
everything will turn out right.”
Scarlet nodded slowly, and turned
around to face the Kurnitz console; followed by Blue, he approached it, to get a
better look.
“It hasn’t changed that much, has
it?” Blue commented.
“No,” Scarlet agreed.
“It’s similar to the last time I saw it.
With not as many burn marks on it, maybe...”
Blue chuckled. “I do believe it’s
not
exactly
the same one that exploded on
Cloudbase,” he said.
“I think they built a new one following new plans drawn up by Doctor
Kurnitz.”
“I see. Oh, here’s a difference I
just noticed...”
He pointed to three small, squared
cavities on top of the console, just in front of him. Each of them was covered with a
transparent flap, showing that they were empty.
Scarlet lifted one of the flaps to peer inside the tiny compartment.
He could see connections on each end of it.
“Looks like some kind of ‘battery
compartment’,” he said.
“I think this is where they intend to plug their stone fragments.” He closed the lid.
“Let’s hope that everything will be
fine,” Blue said in a low voice.
“Let’s hope,” Scarlet agreed, turning around and taking a few steps away from
the console. “But let’s keep close
to the door, you and I, when they conduct that test.
Just
in case.”
Blue’s answer came in the form of
an amused smile.
At exactly that moment, they both
realised, simultaneously, that their ears were buzzing; they both stopped,
looking at each other in puzzlement.
Blue reached for his ear with one
hand. “Do you hear that…”
He was interrupted when a loud
booming sound suddenly filled the room.
There was a deafening explosion,
seemingly coming from the Kurnitz console, which sent it flying into the air in
two broken pieces, and so violent that it blew both men off their feet, taking
them utterly by surprise, and throwing them several feet away from where they
stood. They landed roughly on the
floor, stunned, barely conscious, before they could understand
what was happening.
It was as if a bomb had exploded
right next to them, which was now spreading destruction and fire all around,
destroying the roof, walls and machinery, and rapidly filling the room with
smoke and dust, before they could understand what was happening.
Both men struggled to get back to
their feet, shakily, trying to regain their balance and their senses. Scarlet
looked around in complete bafflement; his vision was a half-blur and his ears
were ringing.
He could feel the floor shaking under his feet, as if it had become
unstable because of the explosion; it was making him feel dizzy, and he had to
fight to keep steady on his feet.
Blue, by his side, seemed to have a little more trouble than himself; probably,
Scarlet realised, he had been the more shaken by the explosion. As the English
captain took a step towards his companion to help him, he heard a loud creaking
sound from overhead; he raised his head…
… And saw that the ceiling was
suddenly coming down onto them.
“Look out!” Scarlet’s warning was drowned by the
deafening sound, but it didn’t matter that much, as he leapt in his friend’s
direction and vigorously pushed him out of harm’s way; as he fell to the floor again, Blue
avoided most of the falling debris, although some of it still hit him, but
Scarlet was unable to avoid it, receiving the full impact and finding himself
buried underneath.
Hit over the head, the
half-conscious Captain Blue lay in the dust; he was barely aware of the white
light that suddenly glowed brightly at one end of the room, bathing it in an
eerie dust-filled radiance, before dying out quietly after a brief instant.
Blue took several seconds, or
minutes, he wasn’t really sure, before he started to regain most of his senses;
groaning, he attempted awkwardly to get back onto his feet. Dazed, holding his aching head, he
tested himself to make sure nothing was broken;
he realised then that his ears were still buzzing so loudly that he
barely could hear himself think. He felt a hot breeze hitting him; probably he
thought, the air conditioning duct had burst in the explosion. He could barely hear a thing, his ears
buzzing all the time; he wondered if his eardrums had been damaged.
“Scarlet?”
he called, softly at first.
He looked around, searching for his missing companion; he couldn’t see him. He called louder, but the dust irritated
his throat, and he coughed loudly.
He reached for his head again, and moaned, wondering if he was suffering from a
concussion.
Another groan, answering his own,
attracted his attention and
he looked through the dust, searching.
Half-muffled by this constant buzzing sound in his ears, he realised that
this moan couldn’t come from very far away.
Narrowing his eyes, he looked in
the direction of the door.
A large mound of debris was now piled in front of it, and almost completely blocked the way. The moaning sound that he had heard
started again, and this time, Blue realised it was coming from this pile of
rubble.
He made his way to it, stumbling on
the rubble-covered floor, probing through the dust; and suddenly, he saw it, in
the middle of the pile, showing through the debris:
the red of his friend’s tunic, nearly hidden by dust.
“Scarlet!” Blue climbed onto the pile to reach his
friend. Scarlet’s face, his eyes closed,
showed between the debris, covered with a thin layer of dust and blood.
Half of his body was buried under the rubble.
“Scarlet,
can you hear me?” Blue knelt beside his friend.
“Come on, Scarlet, old buddy… Wake up already.
You’ve got to help me a bit here…”
But none of Blue’s pleas were
answered; Scarlet had grown quiet again. Worriedly, the American captain gently
tapped his colleague’s cheek; this time, he was rewarded with a new groan, and
saw his head move. But Scarlet’s eyes remained closed.
His heart, Blue noticed, was
beating fast under his hand.
“Well, at least you’re alive,” he muttered under his breath.
“I know how much you hate to ‘die needlessly’…” He sighed deeply, looking
at all the rubble that half-buried his colleague, and which was blocking their
way out. “So I guess it’ll be up to
me to dig you out on my own…
until someone can get to us, that is.”
He set to work, removing beams and concrete blocks from the body of his
friend, as carefully as he could, so that the wall of ruined debris would not
crumble down and completely bury both of them.
The air, filled with brick
dust and
smoke, was difficult to breath, and his work was rendered even more difficult.
He wondered how long he would be able to hold out before suffocating to death.
Stop having these thoughts,
Svenson… People are surely trying
to open this door - digging on the
other side of this wall of rubble. There’s no way anyone could have missed this
explosion, so help is coming.
They’ll get here in time, so stop worrying so much…
They KNOW we’re here.
He stopped to catch his breath, and
coughed to clear his aching throat. That sent a new wave of pain to his head,
and he reached for it, stifling a groan and a curse.
That’s when he thought he heard a
noise from behind him.
It was like pebbles rolling on the
floor. That made him turn and look in alarm; the dust had grown so much thicker
that he needed to narrow his eyes to see through it.
The emergency lights were barely enough to see by, and all he actually managed
to make out was a flash of white light, at the other end of the room. He
frowned, unable to really distinguish what it could be.
Another light, perhaps… A fire… He
wondered if it wasn’t announcing another explosion, and for a moment, he braced
himself, expectantly. But nothing happened.
He heard it again; that sound of
disturbed pebbles. But this time, coming from the opposite side.
Turning swiftly around, Blue drew
his gun, slowly, and stood on his
feet to take a few steps towards where the sound came from. It was nearly dark in this section of
the room, and there was silence now – although Blue’s ears were still buzzing
slightly.
He found nothing that could cause
concern, and slowly turned towards the brilliant white light; he went to it,
slowly, trying to get a better view.
He was about ten feet away, when he
finally realised what it was: a simple exposed electric cable, hanging from the ceiling and
swinging back and forth. Pricking
his ears, Blue could even hear the sizzling sound it was making.
He heard noises
again behind him, and turned to witness as small pieces of concrete and plaster
fell from the ceiling to the floor.
Stuff is still falling from the ceiling,
he realised.
That’s what I was hearing all along. There’s
no-one here with us… We were all alone, when the explosion occurred.
Blowing a sigh of relief, and
chiding himself, Blue pushed his gun back into its holster and turned to walk
back to the blocked door and the pile of rubble, from which he still had to
extract his trapped friend.
He felt the unidentified presence,
but never actually saw it coming; a silhouette suddenly emerged from the
shadows, and stood right behind him, before brutally bringing the butt of a gun
down against the back of Blue’s head. The pain was terrible, but mercifully
brief, and Blue lost consciousness almost immediately. He fell face first onto
the dust- and rubble-covered floor, without a sound, barely a foot away from the
motionless and unaware Captain Scarlet.
The man who had knocked Captain
Blue down quietly stood over his victim and looked down at him with an
unemotional expression on his face;
he was wondering… did he strike him too hard? Did he kill him?
He crouched down and checked his pulse at the base of his neck; he could feel it
beating steadily under his fingers.
Good. I wouldn’t want for him to be dead. It could spoil all my plans.
But he has to disappear…
He tossed the unconscious man’s
body onto his back and, in a fireman’s hold, carried it towards the darker side
of the room, his feet almost slipping onto the unsteady floor. Suddenly, he
started hearing noises coming from the other side of the door, blocked by
debris. Drilling sounds, and human
shouts, calling to those trapped inside the room, faintly audible through the
heap of broken concrete:
“Blue! Scarlet! Can you
hear me? Hang on! We’ll get you out of there!”
The man grunted
with impatience, and hurried his steps. Quickly… before they get through…
He reached his destination, walking
between the two broken halves of the Kurnitz Console, and tossed Blue none too
gently onto the ground, between them. He heard the Spectrum captain groaning
upon landing, and understood that he had even less time to act than he first
imagined.
He reached into his pocket and
extracted something from it.
It was a stone of
crystal-like dark red, about the size of an egg, its surface polished and
brilliant, fixed to an electronic
device to which a wire was hooked, leading to a digital pad that the man held in
his hand. He started pressing a
series of numbers on the pad. The
stone started to shine faintly, with a red light, and as he continued to punch
the numeric code, it shone with a brighter glow.
The man unhooked the stone from his
handheld digital pad, and put it into his pocket, before getting back to his
feet; he punched a last command and stood back quickly.
There was a dull boom, and a new shrilling sound, almost deafening, and the
light became brighter still, to turn to a brilliant and blinding white in the
middle, surrounding Blue in its glow. It expanded rapidly and the man stepped
back further, avoiding it as it completely engulfed the Spectrum captain, making
him disappear from view.
There was a gust of violent
whirlwind and then the light exploded into a sonic boom… It reverberated through
the room, and the man ducked behind a supporting beam to evade it.
From the other side of the door,
the drilling sounds had stopped, and then there were new calls, with a panicky
edge to them:
“What’s that sound?
What’s going on in there? Blue!
Scarlet! Can you hear me?”
The man stood from his hiding
place, coughing from the cloud of dust that had been created by the new
explosion. He looked in the
direction of the Kurnitz Console, narrowing his eyes to see; the bright white light was gone now, as
if the blast had extinguished it; there was still a small, sizzling spark,
suspended into empty space, approximately in the middle of where the larger
light previously was. Next to it, one of the console’s halves was on fire,
thoroughly destroyed…
As for Captain Blue…
An unexpected creaking sound coming
from the ceiling made the man look up swiftly in concern; he realised then,
maybe a little too late, that this last explosion might have been a little too
much for the already heavily damaged room.
The roof came caving in on him,
with a loud rumble, just as the drill came through the door, and, the handheld
device escaping from his hand, he fell face down into the dust, almost on top of
the still unconscious Captain Scarlet.
CHAPTER 2
“Captain Blue, can you hear me?”
Blue moaned, his head pounding, as
the voice reached him through a thick fog. Yes, he could hear the voice… But why did its owner felt the need to
shout so loudly?
“He’s coming around,” a new voice
said. “I think he’s going be all
right…”
“Blue, wake up…
You slept enough already…”
“Easy now… Don’t move, Captain.” Blue felt fingers gently open one
of his eyes, and a light was shone into it.
For a moment, he was blinded. He groaned in annoyance, and tried to push
the hand and light away from him.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a
slurred, annoyed voice.
“It’s all right, it’s all right…”
the last voice said quietly, as the light went away.
“I diagnosed a slight concussion earlier. Just wanted to make sure you were
okay, and that it wasn’t worse than that.”
Blue blinked his
eyes, looking up; at first, his vision was a total blur; all he could see were
colours, and forms, but no details at all.
There were people standing in front of him, and he could see a face
leaning over him, looking at him.
The man stood up and Blue’s vision cleared, and he could see that he was wearing
a medic’s vest. He got a better
view of the two men in Spectrum uniform who were now approaching.
As soon as he saw their concerned
faces, Blue’s eyes grew wide with confusion and he suddenly drew away from them,
as far as the bed on which he was lying would allow. He stared at his colleagues with some
kind of fear in his eyes.
“Whoa! Take it easy!” The medic came back to
Blue, who shivered at his touch.
Gently, carefully, the man examined him further, checking his head, looking into
his eyes, taking his pulse. He
shook his head, frowning. “You seem
anxious, or something, Captain. You’re sweating… Your heart is a little too fast
and so’s your breathing. Are you
afraid of something?”
“What is it, Blue?”
Scarlet asked as he approached his colleague, who was looking at him with fear
in his eyes. “You’re awfully pale. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost…”
“A… ghost?” Blue shook his head, and trying to get
his breathing back to normal, lowered his head and blew a deep breath. “I… guess I might at that.” He looked back into his friend’s
confused face. “You were… pretty beaten up, last I saw of you, Scarlet.”
“Yeah well, I got better, as
usual,” Scarlet said with a shake of his head. “I wasn’t exactly ‘dead’ when they got
me out from under that rubble. And
fortunately, you were not either.”
“You got us worried, though,”
Captain Ochre added, as he drew closer in turn. “You were unconscious, and stayed that
way for hours.”
“Hours?” Blue repeated in confusion. The medic was gently pushing him back
onto the bed, and he didn’t put up any resistance.
He felt too worn-out for that.
“Enough time for Scarlet to recover
completely.” Ochre jerked his thumb
in the direction of their English colleague. “Then he got worried about you too…”
“You got hit over the head,”
Scarlet continued, and watched as Blue reached for his head with one hand to
feel the recent bandage that wrapped it. “The doctor says you have a concussion,
along with a few scratches, bumps and pulled muscles, but that you looked
otherwise okay.” He frowned, seeing
Blue’s confusion. “You remember the
explosion, Blue?”
“The explosion?” Blue repeated.
“Do you know where we are?” Scarlet
continued.
“Of course, I know… we’re at the
Spectrum Research Centre.”
Blue looked up to his colleagues.
“We came here, escorting Doctor Lavender… Something happened in the room, while we were waiting for the
others to come back…”
Ochre and Scarlet exchanged
satisfied looks. “Okay, you do
remember,” Ochre said. “Can you
remember seeing anything unusual, leading up to this explosion?”
Blue shook his head. “As far as I remember, everything was
going fine, until… it happened.”
“I can only recall a buzzing
sound,” Scarlet said in turn. “I already told Ochre, and Lieutenant Obsidian,
who’s conducting the investigation. Do you remember it too, Blue?”
Blue frowned, searching his memory.
“I guess I couldn’t hear much of anything,” he said thoughtfully. “I was almost deaf…”
“No surprise there. The explosion
was pretty deafening, yes,” Scarlet concurred.
“I remember there
was a lot of damage,” Blue murmured.
“The room is a total mess,” Ochre
said with a nod.
“If not for the reinforced walls, it would be completely destroyed. The material is mostly gone. The Kurnitz Console…”
“Destroyed?” Blue asked.
“Blown to pieces, yeah.”
Ochre shook his head. “I would have thought it was the cause
of the explosion, but… Doctor Giadello and Doctor Kurnitz are pretty adamant it
couldn’t have exploded like that.
It wasn’t powered up, to begin with.
Neither was the computer it was plugged into. Unless one of you turned it on…”
“Which we didn’t,” Scarlet replied.
“I told you already. And there was no-one else in this room but us, so no-one
could have touched the machine without us knowing about it.”
“So, not a short-circuit, then?”
Blue commented. He looked at Ochre.
“Was anything found in the room?”
he asked meaningfully. “Anything at
all, out of the ordinary?”
Ochre shook his head.
“Nothing that seemed out of place.
Why the question?”
“Just wondering out loud,” Blue
murmured with a dismissive wave of the hand.
“I think I know what you’re
thinking. An explosive device planted in the room, maybe?”
“Sabotage?” Scarlet said with a
raised brow. “By whom?”
Ochre sighed. “We’re not ruling
anything out yet. Not an electrical
accident, a malfunction, or the possibility that there had been a bomb planted
in this place, nor even Mysteron activities…”
“You think the Mysterons could be
behind it?” Blue asked with a frown.
“Well, it wouldn’t be beyond them to make
something
blow up without apparent explanation, would it?”
Ochre remarked.
“They’ve been known to have done such things in the past… Ah, and… we took the liberty of checking
you out with a Mysteron detector, Blue.”
“You did what?” Blue murmured. He
pointed to his bandaged head, eyes flashing.
“Didn’t
that
tell you I wasn’t a filthy Mysteron, to begin with?” he asked with irritation.
Scarlet and Blue exchanged glances.
It wasn’t like Blue to overreact like that. “Easy now,” Scarlet said with an
uneasy smile.
“It’s standard procedure after accidents, and you know it. We couldn’t run the risk that you had
been… killed in the explosion and replaced by a double.”
“Very comforting,” Blue mumbled.
“Besides, maybe not every Mysteron
agent can heal from all their wounds,” Ochre advanced. “Some of them, we’ve been pretty much
able to kill without resorting to the Mysteron gun…”
“That’ll be enough, Ochre,” Scarlet
quietly advised his colleague.
“And we needed to make sure you’re
all right before your return to Cloudbase.” Ochre turned to Scarlet who was now
glaring warningly at him. “Hey, he
needed to know…”
“When are we going back?”
Blue asked, half-rising from the bed.
There seemed to be an impatience in his attitude; it was like he couldn’t wait
to go. “I suppose there’s an investigation going on regarding the explosion…”
“Well, it’s not
our job, actually. As I said,
Obsidian is conducting the investigation,” Ochre replied. “In the last couple of hours, he’s been interrogating Scarlet
about it, and checking the place.
He’ll probably be coming to get a few answers from you…”
“I don’t have much more to tell him
than Scarlet did…”
“He’ll come anyway, and will
continue his investigation until he finds something conclusive.
You know that Colonel White will want to know exactly what could have caused
that… incident. He’s not very happy when something
suspicious like that happens, and quite frankly, he’s within an inch of deciding
to close down all research on the Anderson Theory within Spectrum operations
indefinitely … I can’t say I blame
him.”
“I can’t either,” Blue approved.
“Giadello and Kurnitz are appalled
– and so is Lavender,”
Scarlet reported. “They do believe they were about to make an important
breakthrough.”
“So if Obsidian doesn’t need us, it
means we’re going back to base soon?” Blue asked insistently.
“Well,
we
will be going soon,” Scarlet
said. “But you will have to wait until you’re better.”
Blue didn’t seem to agree with the
news. “I’m staying behind?”
“The doctor says that you should
recover for a while, before you’re allowed to fly back to Cloudbase…”
“Out of the question,” Blue
interrupted Scarlet swiftly.
He pushed himself into a sitting position and then swung his legs off the
bed and swiftly got to his feet.
Hit by a wave of nausea, he swayed, and a concerned Scarlet stepped
forwards to help him keep his balance.
“Easy now, Blue…”
As if annoyed by this simple
helping gesture, Blue brushed his hands away. “I’m going back to Cloudbase with you,”
he said sharply.
“You’ve been hurt – you need to
rest,” Scarlet protested. “You’re not being reasonable, Adam.”
“You’re a fine one to tell me that!” Blue glared crossly at his English
colleague. “There’s
no way in hell
I’m going to stay lying in bed here while you go back to base.”
“Boy, you’re certainly in a grumpy
mood,” Ochre commented.
“You would be too if half a ceiling
had fallen on your head!” Blue snapped at him angrily.
“Okay, okay…” Scarlet tried to calm
his friend. “We get the idea…”
He turned to the medic. “Is he
going to be well enough to take the SPJ back to Cloudbase?”
The medic looked Blue with a
probing eye, hesitantly at first; when he saw the tall American giving him a
hopeful look – in which he could almost detect a determination that would not
accept any rejection - he sighed deeply.
“He should be, if he doesn’t fly
the plane himself…”
“He certainly won’t,” Ochre declared. “I will fly
the jet back.”
“… And you should get him to rest
in the passenger cabin,” the medic continued.
“We can manage a bunk in the back,”
Scarlet confirmed.
“All right then,” the medic finally
agreed. “I’ll give you some
painkillers, Captain Blue, in case you need them on your way back.
You might expect headaches… and sore muscles, especially in the morning.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Blue said,
genuinely grateful.
“Don’t thank me. You’ll be getting
that rest I’ve prescribed you. I’ll
be calling Doctor Fawn with a full report of what happened to you and of my
diagnosis, and will recommend – no,
request – that
you get examined upon your arrival on Cloudbase.”
The medic turned his back on the sulking Blue to address Scarlet and Ochre. “In the meantime, I’m making both of you responsible for him
for the duration of the trip, Captains.”
“Sure, Doc. I’ll personally make sure he’s comfortable.” Scarlet answered. He squeezed Blue’s shoulder in a
comforting and supportive way, grinning at him.
“It’ll make a nice change,” he added.
“For once, it won’t be you watching over me…
but me doing it for you.”
Blue forced a smile on his pale
face and nodded very slowly in answer to Scarlet’s comments.
He was willing to do whatever was
asked of him – as long as he would be going to Cloudbase.
“What are you trying to prove,
exactly, Captain Blue?
That you are a tough customer?”
Lying on the examination table in
Cloudbase sickbay, Captain Blue rolled his eyes, hearing Doctor Fawn’s
invective. It wasn’t the first time
he’d heard him say the same thing, and so he didn’t reply to it, but compliantly
let the physician pursue his check-up. He did feel drained, and didn’t remember most of his
flight back to base. He wondered if
the painkillers given him by the doctor at the Research Centre were
sleep-inducing – or if, rather, he had taken some sleeping tablets instead, to
ensure that he would keep quiet during the trip.
“You’re covered with bruises almost
all over,” Fawn continued, feeling Captain Blue’s bare torso with his expert
fingers. The latter flinched when
he reached a particularly sensitive point along the right side of his body,
where the skin had taken on an ugly bluish colour. The physician grimaced. “Well, if you don’t have cracked ribs,
you’re certainly the luckiest man on earth…”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Blue answered
between his teeth.
“Would you mind not probing there?
It hurts.”
“Does it?” Fawn replied matter-of-factly. “I hadn’t realised that…” He shook his head in resignation. “The effect of the painkillers must have
worn off. I’ll prescribe you some
more.” He left Blue to turn around
and grab a writing pad. “Okay,
you’ll be suffering from pulled muscles and aching joints, but that should
dissipate quickly enough. This
concussion of yours is worrying me a little more. You can expect headaches and
nausea for some time; I don’t expect it to be more severe than that, but I’ll be
keeping you under observation a few days, just to make sure.”
Blue sat up, and swung his legs
over the side of the examination table. The movement made him groan; he did feel
sore all over.
“No thank you, Doctor,” he said
quietly.
Fawn raised a perplexed brow as he
watched him reach for his uniform top. “ ‘No, thank you, Doctor’?” he repeated,
as if he couldn’t believe his ears. “You need rest, Blue, and you’re getting
it, whether you want it or not! I
can have you confined to sickbay if I want, until I find your condition
satisfactory and I feel inclined to let you go!”
Blue sighed, starting to pull his
shirt over his head.
“Can’t I go rest in my quarters instead?” he requested. “I’ll be far more comfortable there…”
Fawn scowled. “Since when have you known me to allow
that? I need to have someone keep
an eye on you, and I can’t afford to assign a nurse to your quarters for a day
or two!”
“Well, that’s very kind of you,
Doctor,” Blue chuckled with a slight smile. “But I won’t have any need of your
nurse.”
“Is that so?”
Fawn was beginning to get very irritated with his patient, and he was glaring at
him with barely contained anger, when the door to the examination room slid open
and a slender form walked in. Upon
seeing who it was, Blue’s eyes lit up, and he jumped to his feet to stand tall.
“Ah, Symphony,” Doctor Fawn said,
as the two of them turn to face the young woman who was approaching them.
“You’ve just in time to try and convince this thick-head of a fiancé of yours
that he needs to stay here in sickbay!”
“What’s going on?”
Symphony came to a stop in front of the two men, and looked directly at Blue,
who was standing like a statue in front of her, his eyes riveted on her
concerned-looking face. “I heard about the accident in Valley
Forge, and that you had been hurt.”
“I’m fine,” he said in a soft
voice.
“No, he’s not,” Fawn intervened.
“He’s got a concussion – probably nothing severe, but he needs rest, and he
won’t hear any of it!”
“From what I heard, you were not
supposed to come back so soon and should have stayed there until
you were well enough to travel,” Symphony said to Blue.
“I’ve just returned from patrol with Rhapsody and I heard that you were already
back.” She frowned in worry,
noticing the intense way her fiancé was looking at her, and reached for his
cheek with a hand. “Are you okay, Big Blue? You’re pale…
You don’t look too good…”
“No, I’m fine,” he answered with a
smile. “In fact, I’ve never felt
better, since you walked in here.” Unexpectedly, he took a step forward, and
gathered her in his arms, and leaned down to kiss her on the lips, tenderly.
Rather perplexed by this gesture, Symphony let him, and answered in kind. Behind them, Fawn sighed in slight annoyance and rolled his
eyes.
“This is not exactly what I meant
when I mentioned rest,” he pointed out needlessly.
The kiss broke up, but Blue didn’t
let go of his fiancée and kept gazing lovingly into her eyes.
“Wow…” she said under her breath.
“Maybe you should get hurt more often…”
He grinned widely at the remark.
“Certainly not,” Fawn commented with a frown, and the two left each other’s
arms. “He’s becoming a worse patient than even
his partner – who, I suspect, is starting to have a bad influence on him.” He looked pleadingly at the American
Angel. “Symphony,
please… Try to
make him see some sense. He needs
to stay under observation for at least a day.” He turned to Blue.
“After that, I’ll agree to let you recover in your quarters for the rest of the
week… If you
promise to stay quiet.” He returned
to Symphony. “And that, I’m counting on
you
to make sure that he does.
And you know what I mean.”
She gasped in fake outrage, when
she saw the amused smile on the doctor’s lips. “Doctor, how can you…”
“Easily, I can assure you.”
Still smiling, Fawn turned back to Blue.
“Is that a deal, then?”
Blue hesitated, really not tempted
to accept; Symphony caressed his arm, and that gesture sent a shiver down his
spine. He looked back at her smiling face.
“You’d better agree, honey,” she
advised. “I’ll feel much better if
they make sure you’re okay.”
He nodded then, if a little
reluctantly. “All right,” he finally conceded. “I’ll stay the night then.”
Fawn heaved a deep
sigh over this small victory.
“Right. I’ll give Nurse
Crawford instructions to prepare a private room for you.” He turned away from the young couple and went to his desk,
where he picked up his phone to make the call.
Left with Symphony, Blue reached
out to her and drew her close again. This time, he didn’t kiss her, but kept
gawping at her, as if he was seeing her for the first time ever. “I miss you,” he whispered.
She smiled, a little awkwardly.
“I missed you too, Big Blue – when I heard about the accident…”
He shook his head dismissively, the
smile not leaving his face.
“That was nothing. In a few
days, it’ll only be a bad memory.”
He frowned, and ran his fingers through her golden hair. “Will you do something for me?
Let your hair grow… I love
it when you have longer hair.”
She chuckled.
“Well, it’s already starting to grow again, Adam…
You know I always cut it shorter during the Summer…”
“I know,” he said quickly. “I mean…
never
cut it again, okay? I do prefer it long…”
She frowned. “That’ll be awkward when it reaches my
ankles,” she joked. “I’ll think
about it.” She quickly changed the
subject. “While Doctor Fawn is
making his call, there’s someone who wants to see you.”
“Who?” he asked her with a new
frown. It was as if he had forgotten the existence of anyone else. Symphony
chuckled, seeing the puzzlement in his face. She detached himself from him and took
him by the hand.
“Who do you think?”
she asked. “Come on, they’re waiting outside.”
When Symphony and Rhapsody Angels
had arrived in sickbay a few minutes before, Captain Scarlet was in the
reception area, just outside the examination room. Captain Ochre had left upon arrival on
Cloudbase to make his report to Colonel White, and the English captain had
elected to wait until he had news of their injured colleague. It had been two hours since then, and
Scarlet was already on his third cup of coffee when the two Angels, returning
from patrol, had come to join him.
After Scarlet had informed them of the latest developments concerning the
accident in Valley Forge, the concerned Symphony had not wasted too much time
and had gone to the examination room to see her fiancé. She had quickly disappeared behind the
door, leaving both Scarlet and Rhapsody to sit and wait impatiently; both agreed
that if one person would be allowed into the room, it should be Symphony and
that they should respect her right to some privacy with Blue – such as it was,
with Fawn’s presence, anyway.
“The colonel isn’t going to be very
happy with me,” Scarlet said quietly. “I should be up there, giving him my
report of what happened at the Research Centre.”
“Ochre is doing that,” Rhapsody remarked.
“The colonel knows where you are, and if he had really
wanted to see you, he would
have called for you long ago.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Scarlet
conceded with a slow nod.
He frowned. “I can’t quite
work out what happened in that room.
Nothing indicated that the device would explode…”
“You think that’s what happened?”
“I don’t know…
It seems unlikely. Blue and I, we didn’t touch anything. Except for peeking inside one of those
battery compartments, which were empty.
That’s all we did, and I’m a hundred percent sure it had nothing to do
with it. No… There was something else.
I don’t know what yet.”
Rhapsody sighed.
“The investigation will tell.”
“I suppose it will,” Scarlet
murmured. “Obsidian is an efficient
officer. If there’s something to be
found, he’ll find it.
In the meantime, we’ll have to wait.”
He lowered his head.
“Dianne… I really thought Blue had bought it, this time.
That explosion was so violent – when the roof came down on us, I tried to
push him out of harm’s way… Looks
like I wasn’t quick enough…”
“He’s fine,” Rhapsody remarked.
“From what you told me, you were
both
lucky not to be
killed when it happened. I suppose the explosion looked worse than it really was?”
“Could be… We were in a confined room, after all… And with the reinforced walls, we…”
The door to the examination room
slid open, interrupting him, and immediately, Scarlet and Rhapsody were on their
feet. Symphony and Blue came out,
holding each other; the
young woman addressed a reassuring smile to the anxious-looking couple
waiting for them.
“He’s going to be all right,” she
said simply.
“Oh, wonderful!”
A relieved Scarlet strode forwards and came to Blue, whom he took into his arms
with a bear hug. The English captain wasn’t normally so
demonstrative, but it was obvious that this recent close call had left him very
concerned about his friend’s well-being.
“Ouch!” Blue grimaced between his
teeth, forcing a smile onto his lips. “You’ll be finishing the job with my
ribs if you continue like that.”
Scarlet let him go, and stepped
back, as Rhapsody approached in turn, a gentle expression on her face. Blue
looked at her in an awkward way, unsure of what she wanted to do.
She opened her arms to him.
“I don’t think I’ll do as much damage, do
you?”
She hugged him and, if still a
little hesitantly, he enfolded his arms around her, very warmly.
“With a smile like that?” he replied.
“I don’t know…” He detached himself from her and,
keeping his hands on her shoulders looked into her eyes.
“I’m glad you’re all right, Adam,”
she said, her smile not leaving her face.
He nodded, still hesitant, and
somehow, found that he couldn’t look her in the eyes and lowered his to break
contact; Rhapsody noticed, but was probably the only one. She didn’t have time to ask him if there
was something wrong, however, as Symphony was answering her comments, taking her
fiancé by the arm.
“He is not ‘all right’.
Doctor Fawn says he needs to stay a day in sickbay, under surveillance, because
of this concussion of his. Then
he’ll be allowed to rest in his quarters.”
“Oh.” Scarlet offered an teasing grin. “Are you sure you will
really
be resting in there, ‘Big
Blue’?”
“Don’t you start getting dirty ideas, Mister Metcalfe,” Symphony said, before
Blue could actually give his own answers.
“I will
personally ensure
that Adam
does
get all the rest he needs in order to get better.” She looked at Blue, warningly. “And I am not
kidding.”
He nodded submissively.
His face was plainly saying that it was exactly what he was afraid to hear.
“Captain Blue?”
Blue turned around, and saw Doctor Fawn at the door of the examination room; the
physician was pointing towards a nurse, who was coming their way, pushing a
wheelchair. “Your room is ready. Nurse Crawford will take you there. Just do what she says, will you?”
Blue answered with a grunt, but
decided it was better not to argue. “All right… but I won’t need the chair. I can go on my own.”
Fawn shrugged, giving up.
“Have it your way. But don’t complain if you overexert
yourself and we need to keep you one more day…”
As Fawn disappeared back into the
examination room, confident that his instructions would be followed to the
letter, Blue turned to Symphony. “Karen, would you be a dear and run to
my quarter, and get me a proper pair of pyjamas?
I hate those sickbay gowns…
I can never sleep in them.”
“I have a better idea,”
Rhapsody said quickly. “Why don’t you go with him to his room,
Karen? Paul and I will get the pyjamas in the meantime.”
“You’re a dear, Dianne,” Symphony
told her English counterpart. “I owe you one.
Come on, Big Blue. Let’s get you to
bed… and you’ll be staying there, I can
guarantee you.”
Blue answered her with a silent
smile, and then addressed a thankful nod to both Scarlet and Rhapsody, his eyes
staying on the latter for a time; again, the English pilot got the odd
impression that he had gone suddenly shy with her, as he quickly looked the
other way when she looked him in the eyes. She watched thoughtfully as he started following Nurse
Crawford down the corridor leading towards the private rooms section, holding
Symphony closely as he went.
“Something the
matter?” Scarlet asked his fiancée quietly.
She frowned, unsure.
“I don’t know… He doesn’t quite feel… the same.”
She looked up at him. “Have you
noticed how he seems awkward with me?”
“Does he? Well, he does seem like he’s not totally
himself.” Scarlet shook his head. “It’s probably that concussion he’s
suffering from… He’s confused.
He’ll get better soon, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure too,” Rhapsody said in
turn, as they started moving towards the exit. “If there’s one thing we know about our
Captain Blue, it’s that you can’t keep him down for long. He always bounces back, better than
ever.”
Nodding at this remark, Scarlet
encircled his fiancée’s shoulders with his arm, and they both left sickbay.
Down in the corridor, Captain Blue
and Symphony Angel, walking in a similar way, had reached the private room that
Doctor Fawn had assigned to his reluctant patient.
Nurse Crawford showed them in, and Symphony guided her visibly exhausted fiancé
towards the bed, where he sat down heavily with a low groan, reaching for his
throbbing head and closing his eyes for a moment.
“Are you going to be okay?”
Symphony asked him in concern.
“Yeah,” he confirmed.
“I have the grandfather of all headaches.
I hate to admit it, but Fawn was right.
That walk might have been a little too much.
I will definitely need the rest.”
“Good,” Symphony replied with a sly
smile. “That means we won’t have to
fight with you, then.”
She raised his left foot, and started to unzip his boot and he opened his
eyes, looking at her with curiosity.
“Just lie down, Big Blue,” she told him. “Nurse Crawford and I will start undressing you – until your
pyjamas arrive.”
“Really, Karen, I don’t need…”
“Do as I say.” Her smile broadened. “You’ve got nothing to be shy about. Nurse Crawford is used to undressing
patients, I’m sure.” She addressed
a glance at the woman who had started working on Blue’s other boot, and saw the
confirmation of her comments in the amused expression on her face. Symphony winked at her fiancé. “As for me, well… there’s
nothing
you have to hide that I
haven’t seen before…”
He answered her with his own tired
smile and, docilely, leaned his head on the high pillow behind him, sighing
tiredly, and let the two women work at undressing him. He closed his eyes for a
few short seconds, thinking how narrow an escape he had just made and that he
had been so very close to losing everything, in one single blow.
He opened his eyes again, and
caught his pale and weary reflection in a mirror on the wall in front of him.
A new smile, very thin, started
drawing itself on his lips.
Everything was going exactly as
planned.
None of them suspected a thing…
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2
BACK TO “HALLOWEEN
FANFIC” PAGE
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